I always wonder when i look other artists’ work, what do they create first: the line or the color?
As i work with different palettes, according to the medium i’m using. I always Start with colors. For exemple, when i paint on canvas, i create my « juices »*, try them on paper first. I put them on white background, alone, together, crossing. They need to meet the Light.
Like a set, they have to play with each other.
When the palette begins, colors can be tested 8 to 10 times before using them in juice or real layer.
Each color needs a perfect balance, if it’s better, or mute, it’s for reasons. As colors have different history and relation(s) with everyone, the research is based on :
previous research done by Pastoureau, Newton, Matisse, Werner…and many others
my own research and memory of colors
cultural use of colors (marketing, ad, packaging)
For each piece, a new palette is created. I also tried to work by serie, but most of the time, the figure implies a change of colors.
According to Pantone’s, the colors have a code that after i can save and register in my database to use in my digital or manual work.
Even if, for most of the people, colors are not related to them the same way they are for me, i try to connect the dots with them and make them relate to it.
Creating a new palette also implies the relation to Light(s). Colors are always created under daily light, never artificial. But then they have to pass the test of White light, basic Neon tube Light, and finally RGB light.
Then i get different matching point according to every test.
At that point, i have to chose the right amount of layers involved and make them work.
It already happened that one layer was filling too much of a surface and cancelled another. Or that one color was too weak to work on a single line.
The ambition of this technique is to build visual that stands alone and can interact with space, viewer in their own terms.
*juice: mix of strong acrylic color based watered down to use them in transparency.